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AND THE SPIRITUAL IN OUR NATIONAL LIFE, AND TUEIR 
PRESENT MUTUAL RELATIONS. 



A SERMON 



PREACIIED IN 



STATE STEEET CHURCH, PORTLAND, 



IsTOVJUMiBKR. S<t, 1859, 



REV. GEO. LEON AVALKER, 



PASTOR OF THE CIIURCU. 



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PORTLAND: 

VRTTVTED BY EnOWJST THURSrOTST. 
1S59. 



r 



PROPEP.TY OF THE 
IIBIUIIY OF COo'GIlilS 



Rev. Geo. L. Walker, — 

Dcm- Sir : — The uiidersignod, members of State Street Church and 
Society, havhig had the pleasure of hearhig your sermon on Thanksgivhig 
day, are desirous that those who did not hear it may have tlie privilege of 
reading it. 

We therefore respectfully request a copy of it for publication. 

Wm. Oxxard, R. Cram, 

Woodbury Davis, D. W. Clark, 

Tnos. R. Hayes, Geo. Warrex, 

H. J. LiBBY, Chas. E. Beckett, 

Warren Sparrow, Israel T. Dana, 

H. M. Payson, F, Oxnard. 

rortland, Dec. 1st, 1859. 



Messrs. W. Oxnard, Woodbury Davis, and Others, 

Gentlemen: — The sermon, of which you have requested a copy, was 
written with the design of enforcing certain principles which seem to me of 
general application, as well as of fundamental importance in our public con- 
cerns. Endeavoring to unfold these in the light of truth, the subject was 
treated in behalf of no special interest of whatever name. 

Its publication is now assented to, in the hope to subserve the welfare of 
a truthfulness more local and temporary. 

Desirous, with you, to honor both the lesser and the greater cause, I 
submit it without change of a syllable ; and am 

Respectfully yours, 

Geo. Leon Walker. 









SERMON. 



GENESIS ii: 7. 

And the Lord God formed man op the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into uis nostrils the breath of life ; and han 



BECAME A LIVING SOUL. 



We do not admire the spirit of tliat lialf-sighted scien- 
tific pretension which delights to say in the language of 
a recently deceased physiologist — that it can " reduce 
all it knows about man to a gas." 

Still, it does not trouble our fliith in the least, that un- 
der the manipulations of science this stately frame col- 
lapses upon itself, retreating ever into simpler elements, 
till at last the eloquent orator, the subtle philosopher, the 
impassioned poet, resolved to a few crystals, lies at the 
bottom of a crucible, and under the application of a little 
heat, visibly vanishes into invisible air. We can watch 
this process with the utmost composure, astonished only 
at the sciolism wdiich can pride itself upon such a proced- 
ure as at all an exhausted anal3^sis of man's nature ; and 
come back with new delight, to the vastly more accurate 
(simply because more comprehensive statement) of the 
elements of that nature given in inspiration : " And the 



Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground," — a 
truth which chemistry is abundantly able to prove — 
"and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man 
became a living soul," — a flict evident in a thousand 
Avays, but not to be detected by any crucial tests or solv- 
ents of the laboratory. This simple statement of the ori- 
gin of man, contains in itself the very epitome of all wis- 
dom respecting the nature, the needs, the capabilities and 
aspu^ations of the being whose origin it records. It indi- 
cates at once the earthly and the divine in man. It shows 
him related on the one side to the inanimate clay, on the 
other to the all-conscious spuit. Not a rock or vapor 
but may claim brotherhood with him, not a reach of the 
Divine infinity but owns him kin. With the instinct of 
common lineage all his flesh and his bones yearn toward 
the maternal dust : with the spontaneous impulse of con- 
sanguinity, his spirit reaches upward unto God. He is 
that being whom a breath of air may destroy : he is he 
who will survive, unscathed, the smelting of worlds. Ilis 
days count not up even the youth time of an oak : his 
years cannot be numbered by the ocean's sands. The 
summer melts him as it does his kindred w\ax, the winter 
hardens him as his brother ice, — no material agencies 
can touch him, and he would pass unbreathed upon, 
through the chaos of creation. His wants go prone upon 
the earth, and lick up its dust like a serpent : he wants 
nothing which has only a begun existence, but can be con- 
tent only with uncreated and infinite being. 



His passions sliame the very beasts who through them 
might recognize in Mm a brother more debased : there 
is a region, and he knows the way thither, of abstract and 
passionless truth, and throned in tlwti, his spirit sometimes 
sits crowned like a god. 

Now in all wise words respecting man, tliis double na- 
ture must be taken into view. That is not wisdom which 
looks at him either as pure spirit, or as matter devoid 
of inspiration. Legislation must recognize both poles of 
his being — it must trammel him about as one who can be 
kept in the pinfold of physical constraint ; not forgetting, 
at the same time, that he is a being whom no human laws 
can fully control, and that he dwells in a region where 
no locks and bars avail. 

Philantlu-opy in its efforts for man must meet him in 
both departments of his being : Is it a starving man who 
solicits her Idndness ? then give bread, but remember 
man camiot live by bread alone. Is it freedom wliich is 
craved at her hand ? — strike off then the fetters from 
the limbs, but remember that it is only when the Son 
makes free that he is free indeed. Is it elevation, happi- 
ness, prosperity. Philanthropy would give a man? — well, 
endue him with health, give him riches, enlarge his 
thoughts, — but he may j^et be sick, and poor, and igno- 
rant, unless the gift be large enough for his whole being. 

This is plain enough to most men in looking at indi- 
viduals. The truth is trite that man is essentially two 
beings, and that liis nature leads him in opposite direc- 



6 

tions. He lias moral and immoral tendencies within him. 
He is at once intellectual and material. His happiness 
lies at once in sense and spirit. There is a good for him 
wliich is of the earth, earthy. There is a good equally 
necessary which is above earth or time. 

He seems almost a being rent in twain by this schism 
in his nature. The earth in liim cries out for earth, the 
spirit yearns toward spirit. 

Plato's white and black horses drawing against one 
another, well typify the antagonism between his passions 
and his nobler instincts. 

Now if the question be asked what is the good in 
which this being can rest ; what is the good winch will 
satisfy and content him ? — the reply is obvious (and it 
is as old as all speculations on the being of man), it must 
be something wliich will meet the wants of his entire na- 
ture. It lies not in the one or the other pole of liis l)cing 
only. His highest good can be attained only hy such a 
course as will satisfy both the higher and the lower na- 
ture that unite in him. 

But this answer has always been a temporary one. 
The old schism in the nature has asserted itself, and one 
part of that nature has craved one thing, and the other its 
opposite. What is to be done ? The wise reply in all 
ages has been, " The Highest must rule." The nobler 
part of man's being must give the law to the less noble. 
Not striving to extirpate its follow, it must sway and ab- 
solutely control it. 



The spirit must say to the body, not, " I have no need 
of thee ; " but " thou art my handmaid." Not a slave, 
destitute of rights, but a servant to be employed in ends 
involving the welfare both of servant and master. An 
instrument wielded with careful reference both to it, and 
to the hand that uses it. No capricious and tyrannical 
sovereignty is it wliich man's higher nature is to have over 
his lower, but a calm and fu'm control based upon a wise 
apprehension of what will make for the welfare of the en- 
tire being, under the still higher sway of a Law, be it mo- 
rality or faith, which is supreme over both. 

So that when we wish to know of any given individu- 
al whether he is complete in liis welfare, we do not (if we 
are wise enough to take more than a half-sighted view of 
him), we do not ask merely " Is he well? Has he riches 
and is he complete in the material elements of happiness ?' 
but we inquire further, "How does he employ these things? 
Has he the rule over them ? Does he use them under 
the control of noble motives to noble ends?" 

Not till we know tliis, can we tell how fully the man is 
accomphsliing the end of his being. Not tUl we see what 
proportion the spuitual in the man bears to the material, 
can we pronounce upon the dignity and happiness of the 
life he is living, the nobility or the ignominiousness of the 
character he is fasluoning to himself. 

I have drawn out these considerations (albeit somewhat 
obvious in their nature) at considerable length, because I 
tliink they will help us to meet the obligations laid upon 



us today. We are summoned to consider our occasions 
for Thankfulness as individuals and as a people. 

To understand clearly, however, our cause for rejoicing, 
we must know somewhat distinctly the position in wliich 
we stand, as to our fulfillment or non-fulfillment of those 
great conditions upon which our welfare, and of course 
our occasion for rejoicing, depends. And as in accord- 
ance with custom and the proprieties of the day, our con- 
sideration turns cliiefly toward our occasions for rejoicing 
as a People, as a component part of society and the Na- 
tion ; to know rightly what grounds we have for the sen- 
timent we are called upon to exercise, we must inquire 
how far, as a people, we are fulfilling the great ends with 
which our highest welfare is connected. 

And, in introducing the inquiry, it seemed expedient 
to begin by directing attention to the conditions with 
which the happiness and well being of the individual 
member of society, considered in his solitary capacity, are 
inseparably bound. And this for two reasons : — 1st, in 
accordance with that wise saying of Aristotle's, " That the 
nature of every thing is best seen in its smallest portions." 
Which implies that he who would consider the w^elfare of 
a nation must study it, partially in the lesser relations 
and smaller portions of individual welfare. But 2dly, 
and chiefly, because the materials and conditions of the 
individual well being, are set as a type of like conditions 
and materials in the wider existence of a nation. Under- 
standing the one, we have a key to the other. 



9 

The arrangement and tlie law which prevails in the one, 
will be likely to be that which bears sway in the other. 
Says the wise son of Sirach : — ''' All things are double 
one against another ; and one thing establisheth the good 
of another." This is after the usual mode of the Divine 
working. He does a thousand tilings by the working of 
one or two simple laws. For instance, the law by which 
an acorn falls is the same law which holds the moon to 
her changeless courses round the world : and the same 
pervasive gi'avitating force which holds the countless sys- 
tems of the stellar universe in their place, bends, and on- 
ly bends, the drooping hare-bell trembling by the brook. 

Just so the being of man becomes typical of the being 
of society. Just so if we find in him a radical and per- 
manent characteristic, we may look for its correlate in the 
nation. If there be any law indispensable to his welfare, 
the like law is an imperative condition of the public good. 
If any original and universal infirmity or schism exists in 
his nature, we may undoubtingly anticipate its equi^\alent 
in the nature of the corporate existence of a nationahty. 

I shall venture therefore a remark or two (made the 
more brief by what has already been said of the elements 
and laws of individual well being) upon Natio^?.al welfare 
in general, independently of any special reference to our 
own nation. We shaU then be prepared to apply any 
tests which we may have discovered, to our own condi- 
tion and the present time. 

(a) And I observe that a two-fold condition, perfectly an- 



10 

alogous to that condition of man which is imphed in our 
text, " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," 
is characteristic also of National existence. It has its 
material and its spiritual side. It has its relations which 
are of the earth, which find their end in physical well be- 
ing ; which in their noblest development smell of the 
mold in which they originate : — and it has also its re- 
lations which take hold on spiritual truth, which draw 
their inspiration from realms of pure thought, and breathe 
the diviner air of nobility and justice and humanity. On 
the one side are all its resources of physical power ; on 
the other its principles of moral rectitude and intellectual 
cultivation. Of the earth, earthy are all its milhon acres 
of teeming soil and their countless produce Avliich swell 
the granaries and storehouses of an empire, and incline 
in her favor the balance of a world-wide commerce. Of 
the earth, earthy are the factories of a thousand water- 
courses and all the cunning enginery they contain, and 
the delicate fibrics the}^ send forth. 

From the earth and to the earth again, are the miles 
on miles of towering city walls ; the wharves that hem 
about an ocean ; the steamboats and sails that make the 
pathless deep a trodden highway. All that can l)e reck- 
oned in coins, bear they the stamp of Ciicsar or Victoria ; 
all that is shifted from zone to zone by commerce, all that 
science extorts fi-om the hidden vaults of nature, all that 
art fashions with dextrous fingers, outwitting nature for 



11 

gold, is, however beautiful, liowever necessary, of the 
earth only, and answers to that in man of Avliich it was 
said, " Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return." 

Almost all that goes into the account of political econ- 
omies, and is reckoned up in the tables of national pros- 
perity, bears this ineffacable mark of its relative worth, 
" The Lord God formed it of the dust of the ground. " 

(b) Do we look now for that which is the Divine in- 
breathing; that which vivifies all this else rank and corrupt- 
ing mass, and makes it to have a living soul ? We find it in 
the prmciples of the nation. Its Laws express it upon 
the side of justice : its Religion unfolds it upon the side 
of devotion : its Education manifests it in the direction of 
intellect : its Manners declare it in the type of its refine- 
ment. 

These are not matters wliich can be reckoned by fig- 
ures. They have not relation to space or time. They 
come from nobler spheres than regions visited by com- 
merce, or territories under alien skies. All that it has of 
these tilings, cometh down from the Father of lights. 

If now we inquire in which consists the good of a na- 
tion : what is its glory ? the answer comes as before when 
we asked what was the good for a man. Not merely the 
vastness of its physical resources ; the wealth of its ma- 
terial endowments or the imposing greatness of its corpo- 
real power. Nor on the other hand are these to be ig- 
nored, and the inquiry be directed oidy to the prevalence 



12 

in it of morality and justice, of nobility and freedom, of 
intelligence and honor. 

The investigation must take into account hoth poles of 
national being. Its Good can he nothing less than the 
good which satisfies both parts of its nature. Its value 
and the honor due to it must be estimated by a view of 
it both as "formed from the dust of the ground," and as 
breathed into a " living soul. " 

And the standard of judgment here, can be nowise dif- 
ferent in principle, from that which determines our esti- 
mate of the honor and well l)eing of a man. IIow does 
the nation employ its material and sensuous resources ? 
are they under the control of the higher motives of right- 
eousness, and equity, and intelligence, or are they made 
an end in themselves, and sought at the sacrifice of truth 
and honor and freedom ? Not till we know how a na- 
tion uses its powers : not till we see what are the mo- 
tive ideas wliich control and guide aU the ongoings of its 
strength, can we determine its rank in the scale of honor, 
its title to a place in hearts which rejoice over God's best 
gifts to men. It may have all the material endowments 
of the vast empire of Persia ; yet shall the moral courage 
and noble devotion of one Sparta, abide longer in the 
memories of men, and be more potent in molding the 
welf^ire of mankind. 

In the fulness of its physical appliances it may become 
(in the absence of justice and morality) like behemoth 
among the beasts, huge, dreaded, devouring ; strong only 



13 

ill the rudeness of physical strength, earthly, sensual, do\- 
ilisli. Or rightly subordinating its material capabilities 
to the service of that which is noblest and justest in na- 
tional life, it may become among the peoples of the earth 
even as a god : a strength for righteousness going out 
through all the earth, with words of promise to the end of 
the world. And ultimately it is by this standard that 
every nation is tried. Ultimately the question is not, 
what were its powers ? but how were they employed ? 
Not, what was the reach of its empire ? but what the 
reach of those principles, the depth of that patriotism, the 
purity of that morality which express a nation's living 
soul ? Because tried by this test — the early growth of 
Greece and Rome was, relatively to contemporary nations, 
a gro^\i;h in the ascendency of ideas over matter, of prin- 
ciples over forces, History gives them an immortal 
place in her memory : Because tried by this test, the 
mighty empu'e of the Egyptian Ptolemies was an empu-e 
of the earthly ; an empue in wliich the brute in the na- 
tion triumphed over the spiritual, History has wiped 
out of her tablets almost the record of its existence, as 
the desert winds have swept that people's very dust out 
of then- lying ancestral sepulchres. 

Turning now to the appHcation of these principles to 
the measurement of that national well-being for which we 
are summoned to be thankful to-day, we see that the pres- 
ent occasion will allow only a hasty use of them, in a very 
few particulars. The principles themselves I commend 
to your further and more leisurely reflection. 



14 

I. To employ, however, the brief time at our disposal : 
It requu-es but a cursory glance over our country, to 
discover that in that first element of its two-fold being — 
the greatness of its physical resources, it has been won- 
derfully endowed. Upon the favorite theme on which 
American eloquence is wont to plume its loftiest flight — 
the greatness of our national domain, I shall not enlarge. 
The fact is obvious (though indeed difficult to realize) to 
any one who will cast an eye over the map of a country, 
"which needs a new representation of the outline of its civ- 
ilization almost yearly. It is a wonderful domain in its 
territorial reach. Sparta had not the area of Delaware. 
Rome when it set out upon the conquest of the world had 
not the square miles of Maine. 

But not more distinguished is our land for the great- 
ness than for the character of its physical possessions. 
Here, too, I must avoid appropriating speech supposed to 
be sacred to our national anniversary. The fact, how- 
ever, I take to be capable of truthful expression in sober 
prose, that no great nationality of the world possesses 
within the outline of her natural, I had almost said her 
necessary boundary, so many of the resources of a self- 
sufficient and bountifully provided nation as our own. 
Within the easy reach of the enlarging wants of a singu- 
larly hungry and eager people, lie more of the applian- 
ces -suited to those necessities, than within the limits of 
any other civilized nation on earth. Nor can our people 
be charged with backwardness in the development of these 



15 

resources. It is indeed the miracle of modem ages, that 
a skill little less than creative, a science almost as weird 
as magic, have evoked from material nature within the 
past generation of human life more of her cherished se- 
crets, and wrought her to more dextrous uses, and extort- 
ed from her more bounteous gifts, and made her the ser- 
vant of a more manifold artistic and commercial activity, 
than any previous generation since the birth of time. It 
is perfectly proper to say, that it is not in the power of 
human faculties to hold up before the mind anything 
more than the vaguest idea of that multiform physical life 
which turns up annually the soil of more acres than the 
Empire of Great Britain contains : which gives em- 
ployment to a commerce which reckons a tonnage greater 
than the whole world of seventy years ago : which delves 
within our own l)orders, in mines of every metal : which 
whirls into spray the tides of a thousand rivers : wliich 
groans along the burdened lines of innumerable miles of 
railroad : which flashes its mandates, too eager for Time 
itself, from inland to seaboard : wliich sweats and toils in 
ten thousand shops and factories, and cheats the night 
of its hours and the minute of its seconds, in every craft 
to which the subtle hand can turn — toihng, toiling for- 
ever, to supply the ever enlargmg demands of the most 
restless, the most skillful, the most insatiate nation upon 
earth. 

As the Lord God in forming men from the dust of the 
ground gives to one a stronger, more subtle and well en- 



16 

dowed physical frame than to another ; so it is simple 
truth to say, has he given to us more of the endowments, 
present and prospective, which appertain to the material 
life of a nation, than to any other having a place in the 
charts of our planet. 

II. If we look now from this material side of our na- 
tional life, to that other phase of its being which answers 
to the Inspiration of God in the human frame, we shall 
find it still more difficult to express or accurately to re- 
alize the value of certain principles which are cognate 
with our existence. In reference to this side of our na- 
tional being have Americans fir more reason for pride 
than for the other. For, as the moral worth of a man is 
a higher thing than the perfection of his health or the 
abundance of his material possessions, — so the ideas which 
in our origin became consolidated into principles of Gov- 
ernment, are far nobler matters, than physical greatness, 
however superb. And in these things was our very in- 
fancy singTilarly endowed. The l3reath which quickened 
in our national frame a living soul, was more fresh from 
the Author of all, than that wliich infused the frames of 
most governments of men. For our nation (and this is 
no matter for pride, simply for thankfulness), for our na- 
tion started into being at an advanced stage of the devel- 
opment of spiritual and practical truth in this world. It 
had the benefit without undergoing the experience of all 
the ages past. It was free to take up into itself the rip- 
ened fruit of all previous effort of mankind, and to leave 



untouched the imperfect or hurtful results of then- pain- 
ful and costly trials. 

(a.) Certain of these spiritual legacies, of the past 
which became organic principles of our national life are 
of inestimable value. Among these may be mention- 
ed as one of the most potent, the principle of human Free- 
dom. And I mention tliis as a peculiar witness to the 
heaven-derived origin of that mspiration, wliich breathed 
into a li\ing soul the earthly frame of our national 
being. For tliis principle of equal rights is, the pure off- 
spring of Cluistianity. Let its pedigree be traced with 
the most rigid scrutiny. Politicians never conceived it. 
It had not a human origin.* It came by no path wliich 
jurisprudence had marked out : its liighway was not cast 
up by legislation. The oriental nations never attained 
the idea of human freedom. They knew only that one 
was free, the sovereign the tyrant. The Greeks went a 
little further. They knew that some were free — not 
man as such. Even Plato and Aristotle did not dream 
tlus. 

It was Clmstianity alone which gave birth to the 

mighty conception of universal equality among men. By 

recognizing the individual accountability of man to God ; 

])y showing that in the pedigree of heaven an emperor 

reckons no higher than a slave ; by introducing a totally 

new standard of judgment of human worth, and above all 

by disclosing the equal redemption of all men by a love 

which was no respecter of persons, it gave expression, 

3 



18 

and it alone, to tliis grandest doctrine of liberty ever pro- 
mulgated, the equal and inalienable rights of every man 
of our race. 

This principle it expressed in that grand formula of 
equal liberty, " God hath made of one blood all nations 
of men that dwell on all the face of the whole earth." 
And this prmciple (with one glaring exception — an ex- 
ception which withheld from their equal rights one consid- 
erable portion of our fellow-citizens) became the funda- 
mental principle of our national being. This was the 
legend luminous upon its brow above all others, " All 
men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable 
rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness." I said, that with the exception of one class, 
this principle became the all eifibracing one of our na- 
tional existence. 

But it ought to be said, furtlier, that even this class 
were not supposed to be permanent, but only temporary 
exceptions to the rule. History has but one voice upon 
this matter. It was the confident and the prevalent ex- 
pectation of those most concerned in the establishment of 
our confederacy, that this class would not long remain 
under the bonds of that limitation wliich made their very 
existence an anomaly and a libel upon our free institu- 
tions. In this undoubting and undeniable expectation, 
the fathers labored to give the widest possible application 
to the principle of equal rights : and, in what they deem- 
ed clear vision of its speedy absolute prevalence, they fell 



19 

This, then, was one of the original endowments of the 
nobler side of our national life — freedom for man as man. 

(b.) Another of these original principles which the 
Lord God breathed into the body of our national being, 
is the principle of liberal and pure moral and intellectual 
cultivation. 

This, too, is one of the blessings wliich are the special 
boon of Christianity, It is the natural accompaniment of 
that conception of human responsibility and equal free- 
dom wliich she revealed to men. Education had been 
known before, but not as the inheritance of the multitude. 
It was the privilege of the few, not the right of all. Es- 
pecially was the moral element of education unknown as 
of utmost importance as also of indefeasable right to ev- 
ery man. The spectacle was new, therefore, of a nation 
putting into the forefront of her hopes and efforts, a 
/irtuous intelligence built upon liberal culture and the 
morality of the Bible. 

And perhaps, here as clearly as anywhere else, may 
American patriotism discern the trait which may best ex- 
cuse a national pride. In the prevalence of information 
through all orders of social life : in the general intelli- 
gence and mental activity of our people : in the dnec- 
tion of this activity, to a very considerable extent, by 
principles of morality, we may discover, perhaps the title 
to national superiority which would be most cordially ac- 
knowledged by other nations of the world, and which 
could be most successfully defended before the liigh court 
of History. 



20 

It were easy to point out several other principles which 
had, with more or less distinctness, an original place in 
that spiritual endowment which constitutes the superior 
side of our national life. But it is time to ask ourselves 
that further question, which I showed to be indispensable 
to a correct judgment of individual or national character, 
" What relative place do these principles actually occu- 
py ? Are the superior of them gaining in their rightful 
supremacy ? Are they employing the lower gifts of na- 
tional resource, with a continually \videning control, di- 
rectins; them ever to nobler ends ? or on the other hand 
is that physical side of our national being swelling up 
against and giving the law to the spiritual ? 

This is the question which determines our title to self- 
congratulation to-day. It is not, what was the relative 
position of these earthly and spiritual powers fifty years 
ago ; but what is it to-day ? As when you would know 
the character of a man, you do not ask, " what was he 
when a cliild, but how is he now ? Is his moral nature 
supreme over his lower appetites or is he their victim ?" 
so in estimating our present national character, we can 
dwell in no pleasing retrospect, but must invoke present 
realities. 

III. And when we thus ask ourselves, " What at the 
present time is the relation between our nation's higher 
and lower life ; what is the relative influence of her ma- 
terial and her spiritual endowments ; and what is the 
tendency of things now ?" The answer cannot be, I think. 



21 

altogether gratifying. To me, at least, it seems undeni- 
able that our day is one of a rapidly increasing suprem- 
acy of the merely physical part of our welfare. More 
and more are the material resources of our land becoming 
the objects of absorbing national attention. More and 
more is the development of these, coming to be the object 
and the test of every effort of national power. To the 
enhancement of this merely earthly and sensual welfare, 
are the energies of government devoted with constantly 
increasing zeal. That which the Lord God formed of the 
dust of the ground, is rising yearly to become the great 
end for wliich a people lives, the one good for which it 
seeks. The aims on which legislation is turning ever a 
more settled and greedy eye, are the interests of Com- 
merce, the interests of Agriculture, the interests of Man- 
ufactures. These things must be regarded, whatever else 
be forgotten. For these things must be thrown up a 
broad highway, whatever else must creep in a by-path. 
Whatever threatens these, must be visited with sudden 
retribution, whatever other wrong may go unwhipt of jus- 
tice. Touchmg these things one touches the apple of the 
nation's eye. Threatening them calls out all the nation's 
wrath. A fire goeth before them and behind them a flame 
burneth. 

Now it seems almost unnecessary to ask if such devo- 
tion to material prosperity be compatible with the due 
influence of higher principles leading to a nobler welfare. 
It cannot be. 



22 

As a man cannot live for the indulgence of his lower 
nature without injury to Ms higher sensibilities ; so it 
is impossible that a nation should make its material wel- 
fare a predominant end, Avithout deplorable damage to its 
higher principles of Equity, Truth, and Humanity. 

And precisely this damage have we sustained. And 
just tliis damage is growing more and more upon us. For 
this cause is it increasingly the case that " Judgment is 
turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for 
truth is fallen in the streets and equity cannot enter." 
Fast arc we advancing toward the time when our motto 
will be read, wide as was once the blazon of our " liberty 
and equal rights," Trade before religion : Wealth before 
morality : Cotton before humanity. 

, But I will not rest this matter in general statements 
only. I will adduce two undeniable and characteristic 
examples of the giving way of the nobler principles of 
national life before the insurgent upheaval of its lower 
and sensual appetites. 

(a) And one of these is the patent and glaring change 
which has taken place in the sentiment of the public and 
the conduct of the government, in reference to that class 
of our fellow-citizens to whom I made reference before, as 
being, by a singular solecism, exempted from the privi- 
leges of a freedom which affected to embrace all men. 

It cannot admit of question that this solecism was gen- 
erally supposed merely temporary. It admits of proof 
that m the view of some of the framers of the govern- 



23 

ment, the time of its continuance was supposed to be 
nearly ended even in its beginning. 

That was an era when the spiritual side of our na- 
tionality was in the ascendant. Then lived men who 
rightly understood wherein a nation's honor lay, and in 
what was the special glory of then- own mighty work. 

But they passed away, taken from the evil to come. 
They passed away before the inauguration of those 
changes which lent a new and feverish stimulus to the 
appliances of our nation's physical hfe. Changes that 
rapidly growing, gained a speedy ascendency over the no- 
bler principles of her earlier day. Art invented the cot- 
ton-gin, the spinning-jenny, and raised in European cit> 
ies and along New-England water-courses, the w^onders of 
a thousand factories. At once human souls doubled in 
value. Immortal spirits redeemed by the blood of Christ, 
became instantly (if encased in ebon or in tawny skins) 
the most profitable investment a CMstian could make. 

At the same time that the devil offered this great tempt- 
ation to our land, he threw open in every dnection the 
great avenues of material prosperity. Commerce unfurl- 
ed a thousand sails. Trade upraised, as by enchantment, 
innumerable storehouses. On every side a sudden ap- 
peal was made to the lower, the earthly side of our na- 
ture. A vivid heat was kindled in every sensual passion 
of the national life, and the nation rushed, as a man 
maddened hy drink, to the surfeit of its material appetite. 
What though, in its frenzied strides toward physical good, 



24 

it must belie the hopes and prayers and principles of its 
founders ? it must be done. What though the crimson 
tides of millions of those whom God made of one blood 
with us, must redden the way down which she rushes to 
the glut of appetite ? it matters little : honor and human- 
ity always go down in the upheaval of the brute. 

But will not Law, the incarnation of justice, interpose 
her aAvful sanctions on the side of right ? Will she not, 
bearing that glorious symbol of equity in the one hand, 
and that instrument of avenging righteousness in the oth- 
er, stand up for God and humanity ? Alas, no ! She will 
strain to the uttermost hair the strict letter of the bond. 
She will fawn and crouch at the beck of passion, and trail 
the ermine of justice beneath the hoofs of trade. When 
God had a question with the Jews about redemption 
through his Son, the Doctors of the law were debating 
how many anise seeds would expiate theft. When God 
has a question of Immaniiy at issue with us, our incar- 
nation of Justice is straining points of grammar in the in- 
terest of tyranny. 

But will not the Church interpose mth a power not 
less potent though uninvested with emblems of authority ? 
Will not she utter the words God giveth her to speak, 
and lay righteousness to the line and truth to the plum- 
met ? Nay, verily ! Rather will she deny the blood of 
her kindred ; withhold the truth from the dying soul, and 
prophesy falsehood in the congregation. Pvather will she 
invent new argnmeiits for oppression, and strain ancient 



25 

and incomprehensible prophecy to the ensnaring of souls ; 
then, wiping her lips, say like the woman in the Proverbs, 
" Surely I have done no iniquity." 

Under such leadership it is no wonder that the popular 
mind has gone eagerly in a course so consonant with that 
lower nature which so readily gains the ascendency in a 
man or people. No marvel that parties rise or fall as 
they subserve, with greater or less readiness, the behests 
of a people who have elected, to so great a degree, mate- 
rial before spnitual good, trade before truth, money be- 
fore humanity. Yet though the way be thronged by the 
devotees of that material greatness which is purchased at 
such a sacrifice, yet is it none the less true, that the rul- 
ing spirit of our age is one which belies that which gave 
all the nobility to our origin, and that our boasted civil- 
ization is one which battens on the blood and souls of men. 

(b.) Intimately associated with that change in the 
public sentiment upon the subject of human slavery, which 
I have adduced as one illustration of the giving way of 
the nobler principles of our national life, before the up- 
heaval of the lower appetites, is another, to which I can 
however only advert. And this is, the reckless and dis- 
honorable conduct of our people and government regard- 
ino- the matter of Territorial Extension. The greed of 
this extension arises from the same general cause, the 
preponderance of material appetite over those principles 
of honor and justice which are rightfully supreme. A 

lust of the earthly ; a passion for power ; a hankering for 

4 



26 

widened commercial and agricultural resources, is the 
generic cause of this loss of moral sensibility, this enor- 
mous accretion of dishonor in our national affairs. And 
in this instance the shame is peculiarly rank. For the 
immediate motive is one wliich is wholly in the interest 
of that monstrous iniquity, wMch already heaps so high 
our public disgrace. 

Once, already, has it plunged us into an expensive and 
totally inexcusable war with a neighboring nation. A 
war in its principle not one iota abo"\^e the action by which 
one man robs another on the highway. A war whose 
expense was the very least of its e^dls. A war which did 
more to undermme the foundations of national moraHty, 
than any other single event which has ever happened. A 
war which brought over the ethical sentiment of our coun- 
try, I must believe, a far more destructive bhght than the 
French infidelity wdiich came in with our Paines, our Jef- 
fersons and our Aaron Burrs. A blight wliich fell upon 
the Church as well as upon society at large. Which be- 
numbed the moral sensibihties of all classes. So that 
now, we can look on with apathy of unconcern, if not with 
sinister exultation, at the outreachings of an ambition 
wliich can hardly keep violent hands from off the covet- 
ed Cuban prize ; and which are for a moment withheld 
by no considerations of justice or honor, but only by fear, 
lest the act should bring down upon us from across the 
seas, the 'sudden retribution we instinctively feel it de- 
serves. 



27 

IV. And now, having indicated a few of the eviden- 
ces that in onr national life the lower and material ele- 
ment has of late been gaining rapid and fearful ascend- 
ency, and finding in this a cause only for shame, have we 
nothing to oppose to them ? 

Amid this general hounding-on, by "press and pulpit, 
by church and party, the rush of passion and greed of 
power, are we to be defrauded of our title to thankful- 
ness in matters pertaining to Pubhc welfare to-day ? 
Thank God we are not quite come to that ! But where- 
in lies our cause for congratulations and rejoicing? 

Not, in my humble view, not in any broad and indis- 
criminate thoughts of national Power. Can we forget as 
christians, as moralists, as men, to what uses much of that 
power is prostituted ? Not in loose conceptions of our 
national Wealth ! Can we forget from how much of that 
wealth the blood of our brother crieth unto the heavens ? 
Nay, not in any sense, in material prosperities UTespective 
of those spiritual uses which can alone elevate and re- 
deem them. In themselves they are valueless. I do not 
know but the w^alls and arches of hell are built of gold. 

But if we have cause, and God be praised that we have 
cause ! for rejoicing to-day, it is in the traces that here 
and there are seen of an awakening of the public con- 
science to the enormity of the public sins. It is in the 
signs which begin to appear that the divine, ancestral 
principles of our government are agam to be remembered. 
It is in the tokens belisld in some parts of our land, that 



28 

we are not quite ready to sit down forever beneath the 
burden of a shame and a lie, which makes our boast of 
free institutions a stench in the nostrils of Christendom. 
It is in the attitude of a portion of the American church, 
re-asserting the first principles of the Gospel of Christ, 
and refusing to deny the brotherhood of all men by the 
blood of redemption. It is in the shame that is begin- 
ning to kindle our cheeks, at the decay of integrity in all 
departments of public trust. It is in the indignation 
which rises within us, at startling disclosures of cor- 
ruption in the loftiest station, and bribery and iniquity in 
high places. 

It is not in Parties by whatsoever name they may be 
called ; it is not in demagogues, Republican or Demo- 
cratic. It is in the growing sentiment of sturdy hate of 
Wrong, which, under the power of gathering knowledge 
and the Spirit of God, is beginning to make itself felt as 
a force for righteousness in our land. 

It is in every instance of fearless vindication of the 
right — assailed by wrong in whatever guise. It is in 
every spectacle of patient endurance of evil ; in every 
heroic sacrifice for human freedom and God's law. It is 
in the prophet voices which begin to herald the return of 
Righteousness to the throne, and Equity to the scepter. 

It is in that vivid, but all involuntary demonstration of 
the inherent weaJmess, as well as wickedness, of all sys- 
tems of oppression, which is afforded in that spectacle of 
panic terror, now trembling all over the soil of Virginia — 



29 

" Virginia once the mother of Presidents, now the breed- 
er of slaves," — and which offers a melancholy, were it 
not rather a ludicrous, commentary upon the scripture 
proverb, " The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth : the 
sound of a shaken leaf chaseth them." 

It is in the witness borne even by that misguided and 
fool-hardy man, who will shortly testify by a death (for 
wliich however no reproach can be cast upon the author- 
ities of law), how ineradicably and forever antagonistic to 
the human conscience, and to a soul nursed up under the 
grand old doctrines of sturdy Calvinism, is any system 
which deprives a man of the full rights of liis being, in 
meeting those terrible issues of life, death and eternity, 
which this faith recognizes as the dower of every soul. 

It will be, in that hasting day of Execution (which let 
no man pray that it be averted or delayed !) which will 
loosen from corporeal bands a mistaken but noble soul, 
that becoming thenceforth a spirit moving unconfined by 
space, a Power entering the imaginations and purposes of 
men, will sow our land with more of the seeds of liberty 
and humanity, than liis life could have scattered, had his 
days been a hundred years, and his tongue the tongue of 
Otis or of Henry. 

Above all, it is in that recent quickening of God's spir- 
it about the hearts of men, and the conscience of society, 
wherein we read the surest token that God has not de- 
serted us as a people ; or suffered his design of bringing 
to completest maturity a Nation Avhose influicy was 



30 

cradled by Freedom <and nursed hy Religion, utterly to 
fail. 

Here if anywhere ; in these things if in any things, 
abides our warrant for public rejoicing to-day. 

In vain do we look in any other direction for an occa- 
sion of public congratulation that does not tingle the 
cheek with shame. But in these things we rejoice. 

We do not beheve the light of this nation is to go out 
in echpse. We believe in the ultimate ascendency of 
truth and freedom and humanity. We believe they have 
begun to retrieve their loss. We believe that under the 
favor of God, "some one may be heard" in every coming 
year, " offering in higher strains, in new and loftier meas- 
ures, to sing and celebrate his divine mercies and marvel- 
lous judgments in this land, throughout all ages : Where- 
by this people, instructed and inured to the fervent and 
continual practice of truth and righteousness, and casting 
far from her the rags of her old vices, may press on hard 
to that high and happy emulation to be found the sober- 
est, wisest and most Christian nation at that day, — when 
Thou, the eternal and shortly expected King, shalt open 
the clouds to judge the several kingdoms of the world, 
and distiibuting national honors to religious and just com- 
monwealths, shalt put an end to all earthly tyrannies, and 
proclaim thy universal and mild monarchy tln-oughout 
heaven and earth." 



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